Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House and bringing this very important legislation for our consideration. I thank the members of the commission, the three judges who have worked for five years and who will produce a report that will document such a dark piece of our history, spanning 75 years, 18 institutions and more than 70,000 lives, most of them women and children. I thank the 4,000-odd people who sent me emails. I have no doubt they are all heartfelt. Most important, I want to speak for the survivors and their friends, families and supporters. It has been a long, lonely road for them. It is important that this House is taking the time, and that politicians in the Lower House also take the time, to consider these issues.

I come from Dublin Central which has the most recent Magdalen laundry site on Sean McDermott Street. It only closed its doors in 1996, after the tragic discovery of the burial of 150 bodies at the site. I ask the House to think about this. It is less than 500 m from O'Connell Street and 150 bodies are buried there. Our capital city was conducting its business all around that site, and buried, unknown to anybody, were 150 bodies. I also come from the Navan Road, where the St. Patrick's institution is located, as the Minister will be aware. My grandfather was born before 1922, before any mother and baby homes had been established. He was born illegitimately and my great-grandmother kept him. This tragedy, this horrible history, is of the State's creation, and it is really important that the State deal with it and apologise. As a Senator today, I apologise for my part.

I welcome the action the Minister is taking to protect and preserve the records, which is vital. Nevertheless, we live in an era of data and it is important that the data be retained intact and unredacted, in one complete set.I appreciate that the intention to try to separate the data into personal records in order to allow for access is good. However, it is important that an entire set of the archive documents be kept in a one location. In the initial stages, the Department is the best place for this. That issue needs to be dealt with.

I am extremely concerned about the 2004 legislative requirement in respect of a 30-year seal. Earlier, we heard the voice of male privilege in this house talk about rights to protection and argue in very legalistic language. It is that language which stifled those women and hid them away. I oppose it strongly. I want the Minister to guarantee that all of the living survivors will have access to their personal data. I ask him to publish an anonymised index of the archive.

Finally, I return to the requirement to recreate a national archive. For the entirety of this, I propose that it be housed at the two acre State-owned site at Seán McDermott Street. There is an excellent concept proposal to create an archive at the site and to address the issues of homelessness, housing poverty and lack of community facilities in the area. I ask the Minister to champion this proposal at the Cabinet table. If he does so, he will have my support and that of my party.

It is important that we take this action today but that we do not stop because there is much more work to be done in order to do justice to the survivors, make some reparation and give a degree of peace.